A Brief History Lesson on J Dilla
Beatmaker extraordinaire J Dilla left an unmistakable mark on rap music forever. Here is a closer look at his career.
J Dilla photographed for the 'Ruff Draft' promotional poster in 2003. Image property of Stones Throw and Mummy Records.
It is hard to summarise J Dilla. You could call his music a synesthetic experience. Dilla was comparable to Neo in The Matrix or Aang in Avatar: The Last Airbender.
J Dilla was like a mad scientist, experimenting in his lab. Jay Dee built himself an established following as he pioneered lo-fi and alternative hip hop to new heights.
Dilla mastered the MPC 3000 production centre. With this seemingly rudimentary and industry-standard piece of equipment, J Dilla made magic. Dilla’s skill wasn’t flexed through cutting edge equipment. J Dilla used makeshift instruments and samplers.
With this, Dilla saw records as paint and his MPC as a canvas. Dilla would retexture and flip songs, giving them new life. While sampling is nothing new in rap music, the way J Dilla flipped beats was esoteric, luxurious and often unpredictable.
In his short career, Dilla was a member of the hip-hop collective Slum Village on top of being a solo rapper and producer for many artists in the black music scene. J Dilla made beats for; D’Angelo, A Tribe Called Quest, Erykah Badu, Busta Rhymes, Kanye West, The Roots and MF DOOM—and that only scratches the surface.
The term producer is often thrown around loosely to describe your common beatmaker. What makes J Dilla different from other beatmakers was the hands-on role he took when it came to song production.
For tracks like “Drop” by The Pharcyde or “The Light” by Common, Dilla locked himself in the studio with the artist, thinking of ways to best bring out the musician’s cadence and vocal performance.
Dilla’s most acclaimed work is Donuts, his second and final solo album. Donuts dropped a mere three days before J Dilla’s passing on February 10, 2006, from a rare blood disease. Dilla worked on Donuts extensively in his hospital bed leading up to his untimely passing.
The album is often recognised as the best instrumental hip hop album of all time. Across Donuts’ 31 tracks, Dilla finds new and ground-breaking ways to engineer instrumentals that are yet to be topped.
J Dilla is forever immortalised as a super-producer because of his prolific output, impact and creativity he spawned in such a short time.
Stream J Dilla on Spotify and Apple Music here.
